Writing for life

Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 17/01/2008

That’s it then – Christmas and New Year are firmly behind us and we’re hurtling headlong into what promises to be another roller-coaster year. They’re all a bit like that these days – flying by almost faster than you can count them… or is it just me getting older?

As the dust settles on the post holiday madness I can’t help looking around the house at all the new “clutter” that’s arrived. Between Santa and presents from friends and family the girls got so much “stuff” – one of the twins even commented on Christmas afternoon: “Dad we got way too much, we’ll have to ask Santa for less next year.” The result: despite a concerted pre-Christmas clear-out, is that there’s more junk around than ever before.

And that’s what most of it boils down to – plastic junk. In short order it will either be consigned to the deepest darkest recesses of the toy press, never to see the light of day again, or will be surreptitiously recycled by parents whose need for some semblance of order eventually overrules the pricking of their conscience.

Amidst this Bratz and Barbie fest – in a world still tinged with pink – I look at fathers who have boys, and suddenly everything turns green. In place of the saccharine pink “sweetness” of a girls world, they’re wallowing in a veritable gadget-fest. While they’re “helping” with building blocks, racing games, remote control gizmos, magnetic construction sets and all kinds of cool, testosterone charged gadgetry, I find myself sitting on the rug with the little one, playing with a Barbie whose dog actually passes bowel movements every time you push down its tail, and a cat that can wee in its litter tray!

Envy doesn’t even come close… this is jealousy, pure and simple.

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“Working it” column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 14/01/2008

Where did 2007 go? I know it’s a dreadful cliché, but the years really do seem to be flying by more quickly, and, worryingly, it’s a phenomenon that’s only accelerating as I get older. Children, of course, have a lot to do with that: there’s always something they need mum or dad for – and unlike work, you can’t clock off at the end of the day, you can’t take holidays, you can’t have sick days: you’re on call, 24/7/365. But hey, they’re more than worth it… right?

Next to children the single biggest factor dominating most working parents’ lives is their jobs (and for a few sorry souls the job even pips the kids to the top spot). We spend an extraordinary amount of our time at work. For many of us, in any given week, the lions share of our waking hours will be spent at work. It’s only natural, then, that pressures and frustrations from work will spill over and influence other areas of our lives.

What’s important is that we keep these things in perspective.

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Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 10/01/2008

The world, it seems, has gone sale crazy. Not satisfied with the fact that the Irish are the biggest spenders in Europe when it comes to Christmas, judging from the queues in the city lately we’re hell bent on topping the poll in the New Year too. Shops are full of serious shoppers on a serious quest to root out some serious bargains.

There’s something about big red signs with bold white lettering that short-circuits the shopaholic’s brain. The word SALE must mean bargains galore, and besides, at that price leaving it on the shelf would be practically criminal… right? Just remember that “70% off” steal is only a bargain if its something you actually need. If you do find yourself impulse buying in the sales this year, try visualising February’s credit card statement hitting the matt with a thud, its balance akin to an international telephone number, and that might curb your desire to spend.

Needless to say, the city at sale time is no place for husbands or children, so on a recent visit to Cork I elected to take the kids off to the cinema while my wife hit the shops. Fair deal, I thought. There are few things as excruciating as trudging through the shops in the wake of a shopper in full steam.

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“Working it” column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 07/01/2008

Are you happy at work? If not, take solace in the fact that you’re not alone – and that you don’t necessarily have to stay there. Last year in Ireland a staggering 340,000 people left their jobs. The figure comes from the latest worker mobility report from the Small Firms Association’s, which shows that Ireland’s workers were feeling particularly footloose in 2007.

The reasons for this mass migration of employees? For some 102,000 disgruntled employees the catalyst to finally leaving their jobs was the fact that they didn’t get on with the people they worked with. Another 85,000 felt that their contribution to the company wasn’t adequately valued and rewarded, while lack of advancement prompted a further 68,000 to abandon ship.

Salary came in surprisingly low on the list, with just 47,600 people citing money as the main driver for changing jobs. Finally 17,000 people left their jobs because they were simply bored with them and 20,400 employees left for “other reasons”.

In a soundbite-laden press release from the SFA, perhaps the most memorable snippet came from Director, Patricia Callan, when she noted that “people leave people, not jobs”. Isn’t it uncanny how you can distil the actions of 340,000 people into five little words?

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